


Rocks Fall

by iamanawesometaco



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Blood, Blood and Injury, Everyone is Dead, Flash Fic, Gen, Hollow Ichigo is referred to as Shirogetsu, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Nosebleed, Other, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies, Slow To Update, Sort Of, Tags Contain Spoilers, Tensa Zangetsu is referred to as Tensa, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Trauma, alright so its mostly creepy!ichigo fucking things up, author only read up to end of aizen arc, ichigo sides with aizen this time, im so sorry for naming this the same as my naruto fic but IT AINT BROKE YET
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-17 06:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13653000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamanawesometaco/pseuds/iamanawesometaco
Summary: Bleach Time Travel AU where Ichigo joins Aizen because "what comes after you is far, far worse".*I completely fuck with canon and the Quincy/1000 Year War arc bc I stopped reading shortly after Aizen was defeated. Figured he was the best big bad anyone could come up with, and reading someone trying to top that would just be disappointing.also, i def recommend reading on mobile, it looks better.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry for naming this the same as my obito!naruto fic but it had to be done #notsorry please dont get confused OTZ
> 
> also part of my 'fuck it just post whatever you have post anything ANYTHING' posting spree
> 
> maiming references? like. impromptu amputations(?). migraines and nosebleeds. theres lots of blood, beware. references to attempted suicide. ichigo's severely traumatized, sorry bby.
> 
> hollow ichigo = shirogetsu  
> tensa zangetsu (bankai/young ver/quincyish dude) = tensa  
> muramasa is from a filler anime ep apparently, have never seen it but the lil fucker grew on me via fanfic, so here he is

He was bleeding from the nose again. Ichigo hardly noticed, between the literally debilitating migraine and the focus it took to work despite it. The mechanisms here were delicate, fragile, and he couldn't trust his remaining fingers to do such fine work when his brain was on the verge of denaturing and melting out of his ears, so he had to very carefully use the reiatsu-powered dexterity device. Another remnant of Kisuke, just like most of the tools still keeping Ichigo alive by the skin of his teeth. Not that he'd lost his will or ability to live, but his beloved mentor's inventions had saved his life many a time, in battle and out, and with the enemy's constant power-ups, their side had to keep up  _somehow_. 

Their side. Ha. It was just Ichigo, now. With Kisuke dead, the remaining few dozen people they had perished quickly without the technology to match their opponents biological upgrades. Somehow Juhabach, Yhwach, whoever he was, he just kept pumping out more fighters, better fighters, smarter fighters. 

They were overwhelmed. 

The device Ichigo was building was one that had been hidden by Kisuke. It was too dangerous. Too risky. But it was just Ichigo left, it was literally just Ichigo ( _blood dripped from his nose_ ) and the only thing he had left to risk was himself. 

Himself and his zanpakutō. But Muramasa was too stubborn to separate himself and Shirogetsu and Tensa from Ichigo. The three spirits wanted to go down together. Well, two spirits wanted to go down together, Shiro and Muramasa still had Tensa on suicide watch after the mess with Yhwach in his head and Tensa trying to commit seppuku. They weren't even samurai?

Tensa was on suicide watch. But other than that, no one wanted to die separate from Ichigo. He supposed it wasn’t a bad thing. When he finally fixed this device and went back in time, he didn’t want to leave them behind. They were parts of his soul now. 

Only Kisuke was crazy enough to make a functioning time machine. Only Ichigo was crazed enough to actually use it. 

/

_“The notes say it’ll be painful,” he warned them. “Since it’s throwing my soul back by a decade or so, and you live in my soul, it’ll hurt for you guys too.”_

_Muramasa scoffed. He didn’t need to say anything to get his point across._

_“Yeah, yeah, I know you guys are used to pain. No complaining about it later if you’re gonna be like that, though.”_

/

Ichigo sat on the edge of his bed and flexed his fingers, all ten of them. They moved smoothly, curling and relaxing on command. In his past body - future body? - he had lost enough of them that his swords had to be strapped to his palms for battle. Kisuke’s innovations had been the only reason he could still fight with swords - fingers were important to a swordsman, important enough for the enemy to aim at them over getting in a chest wound. 

Yhwach had been right in that taking away his swordsmanship was worse than taking away his life. Taking away his life would have meant taking away his ability to protect. Taking away his swordsmanship meant making him watch as his precious people were decimated and destroyed, utterly unable to help. Well, it would have, if not for Kisuke. 

Gods. Kisuke. He’d be  _alive_ now.

Ichigo sat on the edge of his bed 

curled all ten of his fingers

and  _smiled_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shirogetsu curses a lot. Ichigo is a blanket burrito for about ten seconds. Uhh, hakuna matata? You might get a vaguely better idea of what's up with Tensa Zangetsu? Muramasa makes a few split-second appearances? I don't know what you want from me. 
> 
> Not as angsty and depressing as I originally planned, so you're welcome I guess since I forgot to tag angst lol. 
> 
> No Aizen yet. Actually, no Aizen for a while... but I promise he'll show up. Eventually. He's in the characters tags he's important. 
> 
> And fun fact for you guys: I put fun facts and my notes from when I'm writing into the beginning/end notes. You don't have to read them but I think it's fun. Like, supplemental material. And conversation starters. :) Since my chapters are short I think my readers deserve it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aka because I love you guys and I got 5 comments in less than 24 hours, I banged out this entirely new and unplanned part just now, here, take it 
> 
> **Let me know if Shiro's speech annoys you or is hard to read,** I can tone down on the apostrophes and leaving off 'g'.
> 
> (this replaced a weird, unnatural dinner scene with the kurosaki fam where theyre all like "why does this kid keep flexing his fingers??" so i'm glad I wrote this, it flows better even if it's very different stylistically from chapter one)
> 
> ((I knew Shiro was gonna be the supportive one but this came outta freakin left field for me too))
> 
> Also I would love to chat in the comments, please feel free to engage/ask questions/etc <3

“Ichigo,” Shirogetsu said irritably, folding his arms. “Get _up_. You can’t lay in bed all day. _Again_.”

“I can if I want to, _horse_ ,” Ichigo grumbled back, wrapped up in the covers.

Shirogetsu kicked him. Ichigo fell off the bed with a muffled _thud_ , and the blankets unraveled. “I said _get the fuck up!”_

“What the _hell_ was that, Shiro?” Ichigo snarled. His hair was a matted, greasy mess and Shirogetsu could practically smell his morning breath.

“Me bein’ the absolute best zanpakuto in the world,” he sniffed, ignoring the snort from where Muramasa sat with Tensa on the windowsill. “And bein’ the _gracious_ and _caring_ guy I am, I deigned to kick you out of your funk. Also take a shower, you’re _rank_.”

“...don’t wanna.”

Shirogetsu kicked him again before he could roll over and go back to sleep. “I get that seeing Yuzu and Karin and Goat-Face was a shock. _I get it._ Goin’ to school and seeing Chad and Glasses and Princess and all the others is gonna be hard too. But you can’t hole yourself up in here forever.”

“I threw up when Yuzu tried to give me a hug,” Ichigo mumbled, pressing his face into the blanket. It looked extremely uncomfortable.

Shirogetsu was getting impatient. “I know. It bought us some time, too. But you haven’t left this room except to piss for the last three days. You gotta eat when you have a body, Ichigo. And you need to shower. We actually have access to a shower now, Ichigo. _Why the fuck aren’t you using it._ A _real shower_. With _water_. Ichigo.”

Ichigo sighed. “Shiro... I.” He turned onto his back. “Do I deserve it?”

Face blank, Shiro grabbed Ichigo under the arms and picked him up like an unruly puppy. He walked them to the bathroom. He dumped Ichigo on a stool. He turned on the water, full-blast.

“WHAT THE FUCK,” Ichigo shouted.

“Stop bein’ a dramatic martyr. Who cares if we deserve it? We’re the only ones who took the risk. We damn well _earned_ the right to all this shit, so don’t be a fucking moron about it.”

Muramasa snickered from the doorway, both arms supporting a spaced-out Tensa. “Are we showering together, now?”

“Don’t even bother leering, shitty coat,” Shirogetsu dismissed. “The body is all young and short again. And gross. The only perk is the flexibility of being anchored to a young body again.” He poured shampoo directly onto Ichigo’s head and scrubbed fiercely, ignoring the indignant yelling when soap got into the body’s eyes or he pulled too hard. Not like he actually knew how to wash hair; by the time he could get his own body, they’d all been living in filth for months. No point wasting potable water on hygiene, and not worth the risk of using non-potable. “Your soul fingers should grow back in a month. Other wounds should heal quicker than that. We won’t get younger or whatever, but we’ll heal faster and better for the next, what, five years or so? It’s ‘cause of the, whatzit called, help me out here, Tensa?”

“...neuroplasticity,” the corrupted Quincy said softly, eyes focusing at last. “Strongest in children and young adults up to age twenty five, but observable in adults as well; applies only to living bodies. Neuroplasticity allows quicker and better recovery from head injuries. In this case the neuroplasticity of the body, and thusly, it’s ability to contain a soul, should allow us four to coexist without causing the... the cranial bleeding. It should also encourage the soul to heal, as its current state is still... viewed as incomplete...”

His face went slack and he sagged into Muramasa’s arms.

“Whoa, there,” Muramasa blurted, holding Tensa upright. The partially-Quincy spirit was unconscious. “...seems like somebody else could benefit from some of that neuroplasticity.” The other zanpakuto looked to Shirogetsu. “I’m putting us away.”

Shiro and Ichigo nodded, and Muramasa sent himself and Tensa back to Ichigo’s inner world. Ichigo shuddered and clapped a hand to his face, but it came away clean when he and Shirogetsu checked for signs of a nosebleed. “Makes sense,” Ichigo reasoned slowly. He was relaxing under Shiro’s hands as he got the hang of this hair-washing thing. “I’m used to having a Quincy spirit and a zanpakuto in my soul. Fitting you in is going to be the test.”

Shiro left the rest of the washing up to Ichigo and pried himself out of his own gross clothes so he could take a shower too. His first shower ever, huh. He was pretty sure this wasn’t how it usually worked, but whatever. “Should probably keep either me or shitty coat out for the next few weeks. We can practice fitting all four of us, work up to a full-time stay.”

“...I’ll miss having you guys out all the time,” Ichigo admitted. “It’s more comforting—“

“—than I realize? I told you a million times, Ichigo, I get it. I get all of it. We’ll miss bein’ out, but it’s better to be in and near than out and far.”

“You can say that again,” Ichigo huffed with a smile.

“Nah, I could’ve sworn this young body came with better hearing, old man,” Shirogetsu teased gently.

“I’ll try not to fuck it up this time, then,” Ichigo agreed, the mood suddenly taking a turn for the worse.

“We’re gonna side with the crazy butterfly dude with a god complex,” Shiro pointed out, quite reasonably in his opinion. “Things’re gonna get fucked up anyway, so don’t worry too much. Just do what you gotta do, Ichigo.“

“...’don’t worry too much',” Ichigo echoed.

“Don’t worry too much,” he affirmed. “This is our second chance. We ain’t ever gonna fuck up as badly as we did the first time... so why worry?”

“Huh. I forget you can be pretty smart. Sometimes.”

“ _Sometimes_ —?!” Shiro shoved Ichigo off the stool and stormed off to sit in the tub. Ichigo was laughing on the floor. “Go fuck yourself, shitty-hair,” he grumbled.

Ichigo kept laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: you know your story is fucked up when hollow!ichigo’s character song is “(I’m) Alive!!!” by Becca (aka the closing song to the dubbed Kuroshitsuji anime, season 1) and ichigo’s character song is(/was originally, until this chapter) “Can’t be Erased” by JT Machinama.
> 
> Oh oh hey and this isn't in the text (will be elaborated on later) but Shiro looks like a late-20's Ichigo (with alternate colors), because they came back in time when they were like 28 or 30 or something. So Shiro is taller than Ichigo bc Ichigo is in his teenage body (around 14/15/16 or so, not gonna spoil it yet) which is one of the reasons why he could pick Ichigo up like that and get him to the bathroom before he could complain. Tensa looks like he did in canon (look up "tensa zangetsu" or "young zangetsu" it should come up quick.) Muramasa is... Muramasa. 
> 
> **Ichigo's soul doesn't match his body.** Speculate on that :)


	3. Chapter 3 + EXTRAS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter was too short, so here, enjoy two additional extras
> 
> I DIDN'T MEAN TO POST AGAIN SO SOON ARGHHHH

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I accidentally made a bunch of huge meta-filled comments!! Sorry about that. Later on, I'll put them into a separate work and make this a series.
> 
> Comments Meta will now be a thing! You can request background and meta and headcanon/ _RF_ -canon in the comments if you want! because apparently I'll respond with meta anyway... might as well make it official...
> 
>  
> 
> Links to meta-ful comments:  
> [HERE](http://www.archiveofourown.org/comments/149913702) is some RF-canon, summary of how my Quincy war is different from canon!Quincy war, RF canon about Yhwach and Aizen, the Past!Verse, Muramasa, and more  
> [HERE](http://www.archiveofourown.org/comments/150109761) is Zanpakuto Meta  
> [HERE](http://www.archiveofourown.org/comments/150141672) is more on RF!Yhwach and RF!Aizen

Ichigo leaned against his desk, fidgeting with the towel around his neck. The water droplets against the back of his neck still made him shudder—too many bad memories. 

“It’s early May,” Muramasa commented idly, long fingernails tapping against the wall calendar. “The eighth.”

“I’m fifteen,” Ichigo agreed. “Rukia arrives this week. On the... thirteenth?”

“Hmm...” Muramasa cocked his head in the way that so often precluded a Bad Idea. 

Ichigo took a step back. 

Muramasa doled out a palm-strike to the forehead, too fast for Ichigo to dodge. He experienced the brief, disorienting sensation of falling in two directions simultaneously. His body face-planted into Muramasa’s chest. His soul landed square on its shihakusho-clad ass. 

“The hell?!”

“Just checking,” Muramasa remarked breezily, laying Ichigo’s body out on his bed. “Your healing progress has been coming along nicely.”

Ichigo, his old and battle-scarred soul, looked down at his hands. The thumbs were mostly back, only missing nails and tips, and the rest of his fingers were at least halfway recovered. “Shiro said it’d take a month.”

“It’d take a month for someone with regular reiatsu reserves.” Muramasa crouched in front of him. “Less than a month with your reserves of this time. Even less than that with your current reserves. Less still at the rate your reserves will soon be growing.” His mouth quirked. “He’s not used to factoring in living growth... I’ll stick him back in your head after he and Tensa finish showering. He could use some of that neuroplasticity too.”

Ichigo huffed. “I can’t believe he’s taking a second shower.” His soul’s voice was deeper than his body’s, closer to Shiro’s. He moved to adjust the towel so it was under his body’s head, that way his pillow wouldn’t get soaked. 

Muramasa shrugged. “He hates sand and dirt and schmutz. I can’t blame him. The hot water looked nice.” 

Ichigo looked up from his body. ( ~~ _It was so young._~~ ) “Muramasa... you can go shower too. There’s plenty of water.”

The spirit sighed dramatically. “There’s only _two stools_ in there, Ichigo.”

“And two more in the hall cupboard,” Ichigo pointed out. “Go on. You more than deserve it.”

Muramasa said, “ _Well,_ if it means _that much_ to you, Ichigo...” but he was already halfway through the doorway. Ichigo stifled a laugh. 

Then he was alone with his body. It felt weird, to sit down next to what he looked like at fifteen and push back his own bangs. The angle was familiar, he’d seen his body from the outside hundreds of times, but this time felt... charged. Different. Well, obviously, last time he saw himself outside this body was at fifteen, not late-twenty-something, but still. It was really strange. 

He didn’t want to know what had happened to the Ichigo of this time. That way lay madness. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he found himself telling the body, dead apart from the rise and fall of its chest. “Don’t worry. We can’t fuck up nearly as badly as we did last time, so don’t worry. We’ve got this.” He smoothed a hand over the body’s hair. “You can rest easy now.”

And he wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or not, but when he sank back into it, blinking up at the ceiling, things felt better. 

 /

EXTRA: 

“Don’t worry about it,” he heard his own words, repeated in Ichigo’s voice. His true voice. Shiro paused just outside the bedroom door, slowly bringing the towel away from his head. 

Ichigo was stroking his body’s hair, perched beside it and looking every single one of his twenty-nine years. “Don’t worry. We can’t fuck up nearly as badly as we did last time, so don’t worry.“ His face was bittersweet and mournful, full of gentle sorrow. “We’ve got this.” His voice quavered a little bit. He passed a hand over the body’s hair one more time. “You can rest easy now.” 

Shiro thought, thought it may only have been his imagination, that the air felt lighter. Easier to breathe. And as he watched Ichigo sink into his body and flutter his eyelids at the ceiling, he thought that maybe, just maybe, he had felt the same. 

/

EXTRA:

Muramasa scrubbed at Tensa’s hair. “I can’t believe you managed to make this many knots in the five seconds I looked away. You deserve this strawberry-scented conditioner.”

“...Yuzu?”

Muramasa blinked and checked the bottle. Written on it in cutesy kanji was _Yuzu_ with a little heart. “...Yeah, it’s Yuzu’s.”

“Okay.”

Muramasa moved again after a long minute, chest tight. “Okay.”

Ichigo and Shirogetsu didn’t question why both their hair smelled like strawberries, and the two shared a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please don't make me describe in detail how exactly Ichigo is doing all that with mangled half-regrown exposed-nerve-ending fingers. i can but its angsty and graphic please don't make me
> 
> Character songs so far (subject to change, they already changed a lot ;;;)
> 
> *Shiro character songs: _Alive!!_ by Becca [Nightcore Version] ; _Rock Star_ by Hannah Montana ; _Something Bad_ duet by Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood ; TBA
> 
> *Ichigo character songs: _Can’t Be Erased_ by JT Machinima ; _King of Anything_ by Sara Bareilles ; TBA
> 
> *Muramasa character songs: _Rehab_ by Amy Winehouse ; _Suddenly I See_ by KT Tunstall (shared with Tensa) ; _Reflections_ by MisterWives ; TBA
> 
> *Tensa character songs: _[Mashup] Echoing Again_ posted on YouTube by Ottosei  ((it’s a kinda lazy mashup but the confusing clashing sounds work somehow and definitely illustrate Tensa’s conflict with himself)) ; _Copycat_ by GUMI English [JubyPhonic Cover] ; _Suddenly I See_ by KT Tunstall (shared with Muramasa) ; TBA


End file.
